Smurfit leads way in patchy recovery

Dublin report:There were signs of a patchy recovery on the Irish stock exchange yesterday, with the Iseq index of Irish shares recovering more than 1 per cent of Wednesday's 4 per cent drop.

Packaging group Smurfit Kappa enjoyed a second successful day of conditional trading and jumped 8 per cent to €18.79, an impressive increase on its €16.50 listing price. Shares in the company are five to six times oversubscribed and it traded as high as €18.90 yesterday.

The market liked the results from technology company Horizon, which announced a near doubling of sales, and it added 10 cent to its share price, a 9.5 per cent rise. The stock closed at €1.15.

Food group IAWS was back up, gaining 1.21 per cent to close at €16.70. Chief executive Owen Killian and chief financial officer Patrick McEniff both bought shares during the week.

Independent News & Media climbed more than 4 per cent to €3.23. But AIB, which went down more than 6 per cent on Wednesday, recovered less than 1 per cent, adding 21 cent to close at €22.16. CRH did better, gaining 1.88 per cent, or 55 cent, to finish at €29.87.

AC Nielsen data on the on-trade drinks market in the UK showed that C&C's cider brand Magners lost market share in January, and the stock promptly fell 1.8 per cent to close at €9.80. But analysts point to the fact that winter isn't usually a strong season for cider.

Over 100 million shares traded in Waterford Wedgwood, with two blocks of 50 million and 40 million shares.

Meanwhile, at Irish Continental Group, which is the subject of a proposed management buyout, a block of 1.25 million shares sold at €19.25 and a further 675,000 at €19.50. It closed at €19.27, up almost 2 per cent.